Busted: UK's biggest dope factory

A GAMBLER has been convicted of running Britain's biggest cannabis factory after a jury dismissed his "laughable" claim that he believed he had been duped.

Drugs detectives believe the massive factory they found in Finchampstead was the largest cannabis-growing operation ever uncovered in the country and could have turned out £1.5 million worth of the drug every year.

They swooped in April, just three months after it was set up on an industrial unit, and found 10,000 plants, worth up to £1.3 million,

growing under a sophisticated hydroponics system.

Two of the conspirators, Ian Rollison and Keith Alexander, admitted their crime but Jed Murphy, who was living rent-free in an £800,000 cottage next door, denied it.

He told a jury at Reading Crown Court he had been "duped by devious men" into investing in a scheme to grow a legal plant called khat, which is chewed as a stimulant by the Somali and Eritrean communities.

The jury took less than two hours on Friday to convict him of conspiracy before learning the 35-year-old has been jailed for drugs offences in France and in this country.

Prosecutor Paul Cavin dismissed Murphy's claims as "an insult to the intelligence of everyone in this court room".